Google Adds First Scanned Library Books to Search Index, and Says Copyrighted Works Will Follow

Google has added the initial batch of scanned library books to a searchable index, the first fruits of the company's controversial partnership with five major research libraries.

The Library Project, part of the company's Google Print program, has been digitizing library books for nearly a year, in an arrangement with Harvard and Stanford Universities, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the University of Oxford, in England, as well as the New York Public Library. But until now those scanned books had not been part of the Google index.